Should’ve taken time to deal with my dad’s loss: Priyanka

Mumbai – Just four days after her father’s death Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra resumed work and says she did so to escape from dealing with her loss.

The actress’ father Ashok Chopra died in June this year after battling cancer. A doctor by profession, he had retired from the Indian Army in 1997 as lieutenant-colonel.

“I don’t think it’s strength. I should have taken the time to deal with it. I wanted to run away from dealing with it and I did,” Priyanka told film critic and journalist Anupama Chopra on her show “The Front Row”.

“I started work four days later, one, because my dad hated me sitting at home, and second, I would have lost my mind if I did.”

“Losing my father was not just losing my dad, it was losing a part of me. My dad was my best friend, my idol and my protector. He was the man of my life, so I went back to work because that was my only solace and I haven’t stopped since,” she added.

The episode will be aired Nov 8 on Star World.

With an endeavour to try and become a renowned singer, which her father wanted her to be, the actress is slowly gaining success with her singles “In my city” and “Exotic”.

“Hopefully, in a few years, I will be the musician that my dad wanted me to be or that I want to be. Whether it’s ‘In my city’ or whether it’s ‘Exotic’, for them to have done as well as they did, to hear it on the radio in LA, it’s very cool,” she said.

The actress is used to quick feedback for films, but music industry works at a different pace.

“The way the music industry works, especially in the West, is that one single comes out, it develops, it bubbles, then another one comes out, it bubbles,” she said and added that the process takes a-year-and-a-half before your entire album comes.

“Whereas, I’m so used to movies, where we know on a Monday whether the movie is a hit or a flop,” she said.

For the actress who has proved her mettle in films like “Fashion”, “7 Khoon Maaf” and “Barfi!”, both singing and acting hold an important place.

“I don’t know if I have a preference. I didn’t know anything about acting when I joined movies. I didn’t know it was an art, it was a craft.”

“It took me around four or five years to find out the actor in myself. But music, I learned my alphabets singing. That’s how much it’s been a part of me,” she said.